Contingent Taken Off-Course by Penske

On the eve of America’s foremost street race, the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, Roger Penske took time off Thursday to showcase what he hopes will become one of America’s finest oval tracks--the California Speedway.

On a 475-acre site in Fontana, where a few months ago the ground was littered with rusting machinery, rubbish and decaying buildings left by the former Kaiser steel mill, Penske led a caravan of vehicles over the cleared area, pointing out the perimeter of the two-mile tri-oval that is expected to host Winston Cup stock car and Indy car races next year.

“There’s been a lot of conversation about when we were going to show some progress, and whether we really had approval from the toxic waste agency or not,” Penske told an audience of San Bernardino County officials, race drivers, car owners and media representatives. “Well, take a look. The steel mill site is clean as a whistle, and we’re about to start construction.”

The track will be built as a replica of Michigan International Speedway, a track also owned by Penske Motorsports Inc., with one exception. Michigan, where the U.S. 500 will be held May 26 in opposition to the Indianapolis 500, has 17-degree banking through the turns; the Fontana track will have 14 degrees.

Long Beach Grand Prix Notes

With most of the name drivers lined up with Championship Auto Racing Teams, which will be at Brooklyn, Mich., on Memorial Day weekend, and all the others in the Indy Racing League fold, only Richie Hearn and team owner John Della Penna will test both waters. Hearn, who recently moved from Pasadena to Canyon Country, has driven in both IRL races this year. He qualified on the front row at both Disney World and Phoenix and finished fourth in the Phoenix 200. After Sunday’s CART race, the team will return to IRL for the Indianapolis 500 next month.

Hearn and Della Penna have had successes at Long Beach. After driving in the 1982 Formula Atlantic race, a year in which he won the series championship, Della Penna returned as an owner-manager and won Long Beach races in 1991 with Jimmy Vasser and 1994 with Hearn. . . .

Al Unser Jr. has won six times on the streets of Long Beach and is the favorite to make it seven this year, but he won’t be the only Unser on the track. Robby Unser, Al’s cousin, will be driving an Indy Lights car for Team Medlin.